'La Donna E Mobile' 

Hiroyuki Ito/Hulton Archive / Getty Images

By 

Aaron Green

Updated on 01/05/19

The aria for lyric tenors known as "La donna e mobile" is the centerpiece of the opera "Rigoletto," Giuseppe Verdi's twisted tale of lust, desire, love, and deceit. Composed between 1850 and 1851, Rigoletto was adored by audiences when it first premiered at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851, and even now, over 150 years later, it is one of the world's most performed operas. According to Operabase, which gathers statistical information from opera houses around the world, Verdi's "Rigoletto" was the 8th-most performed opera in the world during the 2014/15 season.

The Context of "La Donna e Mobile"

The Duke of Mantua sings this unforgettable aria in the third act of Verdi's Rigoletto as he flirts with Maddalena, the sister of the assassin Sparafucile. Rigoletto, the Duke's right-hand man, and his daughter, Gilda, who has fallen in love with the Duke, pay a visit to Sparafucile. Rigoletto is very protective of his daughter and wants to have the Duke killed since he is a man that cannot be trusted with women.

When they reach the inn in which Sparafucile is staying, they hear the Duke's voice bellowing within singing "La donna e mobile" ("Woman is fickle") as he puts on a show for Maddalena with hopes of seducing her. Rigoletto tells Gilda to disguise herself as a man and escape to a nearby town. She follows his instructions and sets out into the night while Rigoletto enters the inn after the Duke leaves.

When Rigoletto makes a deal with Sparafucile and hands over his payment, a calamitous storm rolls in for the night. Rigoletto decides to pay for a room at the inn, and Gilda is forced to return to her father after the road to the nearby town becomes too dangerous to traverse. Gilda, still disguised as a man, arrives just in time to hear Maddalena make a deal with her brother to spare the Duke's life and instead kill the next man that walks into the inn. They will bag the body together and give it to the duped Rigoletto. Despite his nature, Gilda still loves the Duke deeply and resolves herself to put an end to this dilemma.

Italian Lyrics of "La donna e mobile"

La donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento,
Muta d'accento — e di pensier.
Sempre un amabile,
Leggiadro viso,
In pianto o in riso, — è menzognero.
È sempre misero
Chi a lei s'affida,
Chi le confida — mal cauto il cuore!
Pur mai non sentesi
Felice appieno
Chi su quel seno — non liba amore!
La donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento,
Muta d'accento — e di pensier,
E di pensier,
E di pensier!

English Translation

Woman is fickle
Like a feather in the wind,
She changes her voice — and her mind.
Always sweet,
Pretty face,
In tears or in laughter, — she is always lying.
Always miserable
Is he who trusts her,
He who confides in her — his unwary heart!
Yet one never feels
Fully happy
Who on that bosom — does not drink love!
Woman is fickle
Like a feather in the wind,
She changes her voice — and her mind,
And her mind,
And her mind!

Giuseppe Verdi, Và pensiero (Nabucco)

Giuseppe Verdi, Và pensiero sull'ali dorate (Nabucco) Orchestra e Coro del Teatro La Fenice Maestro del Coro Claudio Marino Moretti Direttore - James Conlon La pubblicazione di questo video non intende violare nessun copyright e/o di essere usato a scopo di lucro. In caso contrario siamo a disposizione per l'eventuale rimozione

Learning to play piano may help people cope with depression and anxiety

Ingolf Wunder - Chopin Nocturne Op.9 No.2

A beautifully sleepy rendition of Chopin's Nocturne in Eb Major.

By Maddy Shaw Roberts

 

Playing the piano benefits your brain in a multitude of ways, according to a new study…

A new study has found that playing the piano improves the brain’s ability to process sights and sounds, and can boost your mood.

Researchers at the University of Bath placed 31 adults in a randomised control study, and separated them into three groups: music training, music listening, and a control group.

Beginner pianists with no prior musical training undertook weekly, one-hour piano lessons over a period of 11 weeks. The second group listened to music for an hour, while the third used the time to read and study quietly.

After just a few weeks, the beginner pianists reported significant improvements in recognising audio-visual changes in the environment and reported less depression, stress and anxiety.

One of the authors, Dr Karin Petrini said: “We know that playing and listening to music often brings joy to our lives, but with this study we were interested in learning more about the direct effects a short period of music learning can have on our cognitive abilities.”

Read more: Scientists say this major piano chord can help cure nightmares

Beginner pianists took 11 weeks of one-to-one lessons, and reported less depression, stress and anxiety. Picture: Alamy

For the beginner pianists, the weekly lessons began with 20 minutes of finger exercises, followed by 40 minutes of studying pieces on the 2017-18 ABRSM piano Grade 1 exam list.

They were taught the following pieces, in order: William Gillock’s A Stately Sarabande, Classic Piano Repertoire (Elementary), J.C. Bach’s Aria in F, Verdi’s ‘La donna è mobile’ (from Rigoletto), Bryan Kelly’s Gypsy Song: No. 6 from A Baker’s Dozen and, finally the traditional American folk song, ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’.

Participants learned to play the songs one at a time, moving onto the next in the list once they had an accurate grasp of the first.

By the end of the 11-week period of musical training, the participants had reduced depression, anxiety and stress scores.

The benefits also reached beyond music, with those who had piano lessons reporting that their audio-visual processing had become more accurate across non-musical tasks. They also displayed greater accuracy in tests, where asked to conclude whether sound and vision ‘events’ occurred at the same time.

Evan Le performs stunning Mozart Piano Sonata

Petrini added: “Learning to play an instrument like the piano is a complex task; it requires a musician to read a score, generate movements and monitor the auditory and tactile feedback to adjust their further actions.

“In scientific terms, the process couples visual with auditory cues and results in a multisensory training for individuals.

“The findings from our study suggest that this has a significant, positive impact on how the brain processes audio-visual information even in adulthood when brain plasticity is reduced.”

The results, published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, show that those who learned the piano improved their ability to process multisensory information – an improvement which was not found in the music listening group or the control group.

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When the Hero isn’t Quite Heroic

The Clueless Heroes in Classical Operas

by Maureen Buja, Interlude

Throughout most of the opera, there are certain tropes that repeat and repeat: the heroine will die of some wasting disease (La Bohéme, La Traviata, etc.), the hero will save the day (Die Zauberflöte), and so on. There are some operas, however, where it’s the idiot or the simpleton who saves the day.

Richard Strauss: Guntram

In Richard Strauss’ unsuccessful opera Guntram, our title character is a minstrel. He first dissuades duchess Freihild from drowning herself. He then goes to her husband, Duke Robert, a grasping tyrant, and sings a song to peace and generous rulers, which doesn’t go over very well, and then urges rebellion against the duke. The duke attacks our minstrel, who turns out to be a knight-minstrel and slays the duke. While imprisoned, Guntram realizes that, although he spoke of liberation, he was really acting out of love for Freihild. He decides that in atonement, he will spend the rest of his life in solitude, while gazing upon the benevolent reign of Freihild.

Guntram (Heinrich Zeller) and Freihild (Pauline de Ahna), 1894, Weimar

Richard Wagner: Siegfried

This is Strauss at his most Wagnerian, and the minstrel (perhaps standing in for the composer) was an unusual hero for an opera. However, if we look at Wagner, we have another idiot hero. Siegfried is a boy from the forest. Raised by Mime the dwarf, Siegfried despises his foster father and declares that he only stays until Mime tells him about his childhood. Mime tells him about Sieglinde and Siegmund and how Sieglinde died giving birth to Siegfried. Only Siegfried, the ‘one who knows no fear,’ can forge the great sword Nothung and after slicing Mime’s anvil in half, goes off to fight Fafner, the dragon left over from the first Ring opera.

Jay Hunter Morris as Siegfried (Metropolitan Opera)

Siegfried, raised only by Mime, is such an innocent that when he gets to his pre-destined role in this opera, rescuing Brünnhilde from the ring of fire her father has imprisoned her in, that he unwittingly utters the funniest line in the entire Ring cycle: “Das ist kein Mann!” (That is no man!), as he removes her armour. He’s one of the rare slices first, ask questions later opera heroes.

Modest Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov

The opera Boris Godunov has a character called a ‘yuródivïy,’ i.e., a fool for Christ. These Holy Fools act intentionally foolish, to ‘conceal their perfection from the world.’ The yuródivïy appears in Act IV, chased by children and singing a nonsense song. As the Pretender readies himself for his march on Boris, the yuródivïy sings a song predicting the difficulties that the country will soon face (Flow, flow, bitter tears!).

Sam Furness as the Holy Fool in Boris Godunov, 2019 (The Royal Opera) (Photo by Clive Barda)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Die Zauberflöte

In Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, we have the unique character of Papageno. A bird-catcher by profession, he’s seemingly half-bird himself.

Emanuel Schikaneder, librettist of Die Zauberflöte, shown performing in the role of Papageno as shown in the first edition of the libretto

He’s not above lying to Tamino about how he killed the fearsome serpent, but when he’s pressed into service for our hero, he’s the first one to actually discover the kidnapped Pamina. Through the trial sequence, despite being told over and over to be silent, he can’t keep still. Banished from the test, he is saved by the appearance of his own half-bird woman, Papagena. We know that Tamino and Pamina will have a difficult intellectual life but that the two simpletons, Papagena and Papageno are only intending to have many, many, many children.

Papageno (Jonathan Michie) and Papagena (Hye-Jung Lee) and children (Florida Grand Opera)

Giuseppe Verdi: Falstaff

We could also consider Verdi’s Falstaff as the idiot hero – used to a life of pleasure when he hung around with Prince Hal, he’s no longer the center stage when Hal becomes King Henry. His attempts to seduce women end with him being thrown in the river with the laundry and his forest appearance as the ghost of Herne the Hunter, complete with stag horns.

Robert Smirke: Fallstaff with his horns

Idiots and half-men, religious fanatics and social innocents – all have their place in the world of opera.

Giuseppe Verdi: A True Revolutionary? A True Romantic?

by Ursula Rehn Wolfman , Interlude

Later mythologized as a true Italian, Giuseppe Verdi was born on October 10, 1813 in Busseto as a French subject, which seems to have disturbed him enough to lead him to represent that he had in fact been born in 1814, in which year the Dukedom of Parma, to which Busseto belonged, became an independent Italian state. Throughout most of the 19th century, Italy was not a political entity, but rather a cultural idea, where everyone, whether in Milano, Venice, Genoa, in the Piedmont and in the many other cities and states, could live as a member of an ancient, noble and respectable cultural community, irrespective of borders, customs and tariffs. A political union had been impossible, since the major European powers — Germany, Spain, France and Austria, as well as the Papal States — controlled the various Italian regions. The 19th century saw a re-awakening, the ‘risorgimento’ as it would later be called — a cry for political unity and independence, whose most outspoken representative was the writer Vittorio Alfieri, whom Verdi very much admired. Alfieri conceived Italian nationalism as a spiritual/political idea of liberation and freedom, a concept which became the focus of various political movements in the following years.

The Italian Root of Giuseppe Verdi

In Italy, even language divided the different Italian regions, in which everyone spoke the specific dialect of the district — Italian as such was used only as a written language and was unfamiliar to most. The only languages everyone did understand, were those of music and poetry, such as that of Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso. Music and opera made it possible for every Italian to be part of this nation of culture, a unity of the people. Music, as the true expression of feelings, of the heart, of passions, could therefore be considered the true language of the people. Already in earlier centuries, Italians knew that they were a European musical power, for example with Cherubini in Paris and Spontini in Berlin, and that Vienna, with Vivaldi, Salieri and many others, was the Italian musical capital per se. In the 19th century, even though Italy was not a single national political entity, opera brought people together. Italian masters, Rossini from Bologna, Bellini from Catania and Donizetti from Bergamo, were successful in all of Europe and brought Italian opera to the North.

Verdi was very much influenced by Italian republican ideas — he named his children Icilio and Virginia after idealized Republican Roman heroes — but he also made sure not to offend the Austrian authorities by openly supporting the regional independence movements.

While working in Milano in 1832, which at that time was still under Austrian command, he not only heard Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and major works of Viennese classical music, but broke his contract to work in Busseto in order to remain in Milano, where his first opera, ‘Oberto’, received a favorable reception.

Nationalism in Giuseppe Verdi’s Operas?

In 1842, again in Milano, Verdi achieved real fame with his opera, ‘Nabucco’, which also saw tremendous success in Vienna in 1843. All of the famous salons in Milano now became open to him, in particular the salon of Clarina and Andrea Maffai (descendants of the Italian/German aristocracy with familial connections to Munich and Salzburg), who introduced Verdi to ‘world literature’, in particular the works of Klopstock, Schlegel, Goethe, Schiller, Grillparzer and particularly Madame de Staël’s book on Germany (‘De l’Allemagne’). Andrea Maffai was also a member of the ‘Societá dei filodrammatici’, whose focus was to unite opera and drama – an idea Verdi would apply to all of his future operas – just as Wagner was seeking to do. Under the influence of Maffai and his friends, Verdi became one of the Italian composers most knowledgeable about European dramatic literature. The northern ‘high’ aristocratic families, such as the Strassoldo, Colloredo, Pallavicini, Thurn und Taxis as well as many others, had international focus and background — they provided support to artists without consideration of language or nationality. For them, music, and in particular opera, had to be good, with themes that could be presented anywhere — not patriotic political pieces, but great Italian music. Verdi did not think of an Italian nationalistic piece when he composed ‘Nabucco’, but in later years, the choir of prisoners, ‘Va pensiero’, anchored the myth that Verdi had given voice to Italian demands for freedom, unity and independence. Interestingly, nowhere other than in Italy, whether in Vienna, Berlin or Weimar, was the famous choir of prisoners considered as political provocation, and the opera was a great success.

Elements of many of his other works, such as parts of Ernani, I Lombardi, Don Carlos and Macbeth, were also later seen by Italians as the voice of the people protesting foreign dominance, although Verdi himself made no such connection. Unlike Wagner, who had actively participated in the 1848 revolution in Dresden, Verdi saw the various Italian political attempts at liberation and reunification from afar –(i.e., the revolutions of 1830, 1848, 1861, 1866 and finally, the unification of Italy in 1871) — from Paris or from his luxurious country estate in Roncole. In his personal letters, he expressed his interest in Italian political matters, but what most interested him was the financial success of his operas and his friendships throughout Europe. Italy was and remained for him a cultural idea, an idea of Italian art, music and way of life.

Can Giuseppe Verdi Be Considered a True Romantic?

As I have mentioned before, Verdi was very familiar with the ‘classical’ works of Shakespeare, the ‘romantic’ works of Victor Hugo, Lord Byron and Alexandre Dumas and based many of his operas on their works. Interestingly, Shakespeare had been rediscovered by the French Romantic painters and writers in the 19th century, who saw him as a revolutionary playwright. In his plays, Shakespeare had never adhered to, and had broken, with the classical French dictum of the ‘unity of time, action and space’, where all stage performance had to adhere to the 24-hour rule, i.e. that all the action on stage had to be started and completed within a 24 hour day. In opera, one such example of the rule is Mozart’s ‘Abduction from the Seraglio’, where the action starts with the abduction and ends with the resolution and celebratory meal 24 hours later. Another example is Puccini’s ‘Tosca’, which starts with the meeting of the protagonists in church and ends with the execution the next morning, again 24 hours. Virtually all classical plays and operas would follow these rules.

Verdi used Victor Hugo’s play ‘Hernani’ as the basis for his opera by the same name. In 1830, Hugo’s ‘Hernani’ had its first Paris performance as the first Romantic play, and had met with fierce opposition from the French audience, although valiantly defended by Hector Berlioz, Théophile Gautier and many of the French Romantic writers and painters. Hugo had broken all of the classical rules — the locale and action in his play changed often and they exceeded the 24 hour day. Composed in 1844, Verdi insisted that his opera libretto follow Hugo’s play as closely as possible, and so, in Act I, the action is situated in the mountains of Aragon; in Act II, in Don Ruy Gomez Castle; in Act III, in Charlemagne’s tomb in Aachen; and in act IV, back to Spain, in Saragossa. The opera also shows the young Verdi honing his operatic skills in creating dramatic tension (three men pay court to one woman), with the conspiracy scene, its evocative orchestral coloring, and in general, the lyrical fervor of his arias (‘Ernani… Ernani involami’; ‘Vieni meco, sol di rose’, etc.), setting the new standards for Romantic operas — Italian style.

In the 19th century, we not only see the change from the Classical to the Romantic canon in theatre and music, but also in painting. Verdi continued his successes with ‘Rigoletto’ (based on Victor Hugo’s, ‘Le Roi s’amuse’), ‘Il Trovatore’, and ‘La Traviatia’ (based on Alexandre Dumas’ play ‘La dame aux camélias’). All three operas can be seen as Verdi’s supreme achievement of the Romantic Italian melodrama, and we can consider him a true Romantic — but not a true Revolutionary.

Did Giuseppe Verdi Compose only Operas?

by Georg Predota, Interlude

Giuseppe Verdi, 1840

We do know that Giuseppe Verdi was born in the small village of Roncole, near Busseto in the Duchy of Parma. What is not clear, however, is the exact date of his birth. The baptismal register of 11 October records him as ‘born yesterday,’ but as days were sometimes counted as beginning at sunset, that could mean either 9 or 10 October. His parents belonged to families of small landowners and traders, and his father Carlo was described as an innkeeper and his mother Luigia Uttini as a spinner. The family always celebrated the boy’s birthday on 9 October, and Verdi strongly believed that he was actually born on that day.

Verdi as organist in Busseto

We are not going to argue with Verdi about his birthday, but instead recognize him as one of the most precocious musical talents of all time. He started keyboard lessons at the age of three, and when his teacher passed away, the nine-year old Giuseppe took over his teacher’s job and duties. He was rejected in his application to the Milan Conservatory, citing “faulty piano technique; a promising composer with genuine imagination but in need of contrapuntal discipline.” This rejection, although painful, did not prevent Verdi to arguably become the greatest Italian musical dramatist.

Boito and Verdi, 1893

Verdi composed 27 operas, beginning with Oberto in 1839 and ending with Falstaff in 1893. After Verdi had completed Aida in 1870/71, he decided that he would write no more music for the stage. Instead he turned to a religious work in the Messa da Requiem and to instrumental music in his Quartet for Strings. In the event, his operatic collaborations with Boito resumed, but around the time of Falstaff, he again composed a number of religious choral works. Collected under the title Quattro pezzi sacri, Verdi paid respects to two figures from the Italian past that he considered central to the cultural unity of the country.

Verdi’s birthplace

He uses texts by Dante, and relies for his musical setting on the contrapuntal treatment and word painting of Palestrina. Scholars have suggested, “Verdi’s last antique style might well suggest an old man’s retreat from the world; but on another level it speaks yet again of Verdi’s passionate concern for the national traditions into which he had been born, and with which he had so constantly engaged.

Verdi described the setting of the “Ave Maria” as Scala enigmatica armonizzata a Quattro voci miste (Enigmatic scale, harmonized for four mixed voices). This enigmatic scale spans an octave and rises by a semitone and by an augmented second. It is followed by three whole tone and two semitones. It descends with two semitones followed by one whole tone and an augmented second. From there a semitone, the original augmented second, and finally a semitone concludes the descending version of Verdi’s enigmatic scale. The scale is first heard in the bass, both ascending and descending, and then in the alto, tenor and the soprano. It sounds like a harmonic and contrapuntal exercise, and originally it was not part of the Quattro pezzi sacri, but eventually the publisher Ricordi included it in the set.

Verdi at age 86

Verdi’s setting of the “Stabat mater” calls for four-voice choir, and large orchestra with harp. Composed in 1896 and 1897 it uses the text of the famous Roman Catholic hymn “The grieving Mother stood.” Variously attributed to Pope Innocent III, St. Bonaventure, and the Franciscan monk Jacopone da Todi, it offers a unique female perspective on the crucifixion of Jesus. In twelve couplets, the poetry expresses compassion for Mary, mother of Christ, as she watches her son suffering on the cross. Verdi’s setting refrains from text repetitions, and he unifies the work with internal melodic references. Taking the poetry from the last canto of Dante’s Paradiso, “Laudi alla Vergine Maria” is a largely homophonic and delicate setting for two sopranos and two contraltos. His setting of the “Te Deum” is scored for double choir and orchestra, and it is a work of considerable originality and power. It is widely regarded as “the proper conclusion to any performance of this group of settings.” Although the text is frequently used to celebrate military victories and coronations, Verdi wrote to his friend Giovanni Tebadini “the text has nothing to do with victories and coronations.” Instead, Verdi presents an intimate and moving prayer that constantly changes in tone and expression.